


My Magnificent Pregnant Seahorse

by SakuraBlossomStorm



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Male Pregnancy, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Male Pregnancy, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Romantic Comedy, Triplets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 13:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8057578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraBlossomStorm/pseuds/SakuraBlossomStorm
Summary: AU. Ben gets a crazy idea when he and Leslie find out that she can't have children.





	My Magnificent Pregnant Seahorse

**Author's Note:**

> I am very sorry for what you are about to read.
> 
> Ok so some background on how this came about: I saw a post on tumblr that mentioned Ben getting pregnant and I thought 'ha that would make a fun AU'.
> 
> Then the coffee machine broke at work and my brain went into overdrive and I was like 'hey let's go home and write this AU'.
> 
> And then this happened...

Everything ached. His legs, his feet, his chest, even his hands throbbed for some reason.

Did every woman feel like this? If so then he had a newfound respect for all pregnant woman, he should totally call his Mom and tell her that he’s really sorry for giving her nine months of grief.

His hands absentmindedly travelled to his swollen middle and circled around the mass, feeling every part of it, he felt a gentle kick in the lower part of his abdomen and he sighed contently. 

It had been a surreal ten months or so, from the nights of trying so desperately to conceive, to the multiple pregnancy tests littering their bathroom cabinet, to the tears at 3am and holding Leslie while she sobbed that she would never be able to get pregnant.

The day they went to the doctors’ office was one of the worst days of their life together, they had done tests, everything had been followed correctly and she sat in front of them with a sad look on her face, telling Leslie that despite her eggs and Ben’s sperm being fine, she would never be able to have children.

She crumpled against him sobbing hard, clinging hold of his shirt, Ben’s heart broke into a million pieces as he held her, they would never be able to have children, she’d never be a mother and there was nothing he could do to help.

Or so he thought.

That night after Leslie had basically cried herself to sleep he stayed up all night looking up several alternatives. Adoption, surrogacy, nothing seemed to their criteria, Leslie had said that she wanted them to have the child together, no outside help, just the two of them.

That led him to reading about several women who had uterus transplants and had successfully had a baby. The next day he went back to the doctors to suggest the plan.

“It’s not that simple” Doctor Heather had explained, “The problem with Leslie is that it’s not just her uterus, her immune system also plays a massive factor, should the transplant be a success there’s a high possibility that the baby would not survive or her for that matter”.

Ben cursed himself for not making her eat more vegetables.

“The fact of the matter would be that you’d have a better chance carrying a child then Leslie” Doctor Heather continued.

“So let’s do that then” Ben said without thinking, “I’ll have the transplant”.

Doctor Heather opened her mouth to counter Ben’s new plan, but paused, “It’s possible, some men have had transplants and been the host for a foetus before” She said, “But risky…so incredibly risky”.

Ben had not thought this through either, a spontaneous idea that popped into his brain and refused to leave, it was possible, it could happen, he could carry a baby and then give birth via caesarean.

After weeks of drafting a potential plan with the doctors he then presented it to Leslie, who was still distraught about not being able to conceive.

Ben presented her with a binder he had made himself called ‘The Seahorse Method’, detailing how this would work out. Leslie stared at the binder in shock, her shaky fingers delicately thumbing through the pages.

“It’s not ideal, but it’s our only option for the two of us to do it together” Ben said as he sat down next to her, “What do you think?”

Leslie immediately started crying, “This is the most thoughtful thing that anyone has ever done for me…but so much could go wrong…you’re not built to have children, you could regret the uterus, the baby could die, you could die”.

“It’s a risk” Ben agreed, “But it’s the same risk for any pregnant woman, I want to do this, Leslie. But I’ll only do it if you are 100% ok with it”.

Leslie bit her lip, taking in everything. After what felt like hours of her deliberating everything she slowly nodded.

“Ok…let’s get you pregnant”.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next two months they played the waiting game, waiting for a donor that matched Ben’s blood type, after what felt like an eternity the doctors called and announced that they had a uterus and were ready for surgery.

Ben was admitted to St Joseph’s later that month; several surgeons had flown in from all over the country to see that everything went smoothly. 

Leslie stayed with Ben all the way up to the surgery, he had been prepped and was lying in a hospital bed, his heart pounding in nerves, Leslie gently stroked his hand with her thumb.

“When I wake up I’ll hopefully be ready to go” He said softly to her.

Leslie nodded, “I’ll be outside of that room for the whole time, I won’t leave for anything, not even to go to the bathroom”.

Ben chuckled, “You can go to the bathroom if you have to, what else will you do?”

They were interrupted by the nurse coming into the room announcing that they were ready for him, Leslie kissed her husband goodbye and she left the room, taking slow and steady breaths.

The surgery lasted nine hours in total, Ben wasn’t too sure what happened in there but when he woke up he felt sore and exhausted. Leslie was next to him, tears streaming down her face and in contrast a huge smile on her face.

“Everything went ok” She cried out, “Once you’ve recovered we can officially start!”

Ben had to recover for a good month, but soon he was ready for the fertilized egg to be placed inside of him, they had placed five in there with the assumption that the majority of them wouldn’t survive.

They played the waiting game for another eight weeks; they tried to get back to life as normal trying not to think about the high chance of failure. They had worked so hard to get here this far the world would just be cruel to let them fall here.

They visited the doctors after eight weeks for Ben’s first scan. Dr Saperstein had been drafted in and sworn to secrecy by the surgeons to keep everything under wraps. Even Leslie and Ben wanted to keep it all a secret; the last thing they wanted was a huge scandal surrounding them and the citizens from Pawnee getting involved.

Ben had been feeling very weird recently, achy and sick all the time, he had hoped this was just the first early signs of pregnancy and that everything was going well, but there was still that nagging in the back of his brain that he tried so hard to ignore that this was all going to end in tears.

Cold gel was squirted on his stomach and Ben stared up at the ceiling, refusing to look at the screen until Dr Saperstein confirmed that everything was ok, his heart thumped in his ears as Dr Saperstein pressed down on his abdomen. Leslie stood next to him dutifully holding his hand, her eyes focused on the screen looking for the both of them.

“And here’s your healthy baby” Dr Saperstein announced after minutes of silence, Ben’s head jerked to the screen and nearly cried in happiness, there it was, a tiny little speck on the screen that was their baby, everything had worked.

“Oh…and there’s another baby” They heard Dr Saperstein say, Ben gulped, oh god this was a bad idea; they had done something so unnaturally they had conceived a baby with two bodies. 

“Twins” Leslie gasped, her hand gripping Ben’s tighter.

“And there’s another”.

Ben’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head and Leslie used her free hand to grab hold to the side of the bed to stop herself from fainting.

“Triplets…Triplets??”

There was an immediate panic, surgeons and doctors were all called and brought to Dr Saperstein’s office, Ben sat there with his stomach out for a good two hours while they all discussed how the chances were so slim that Ben would be able to carry all three to the end, then there were talks of terminating two of the three babies now to ensure the survival chances of one when Ben snapped.

He had been looking at Leslie’s face for the entire time, she looked from his stomach to his eyes and Ben knew exactly what she was thinking, there were three babies in there, three, and she wanted them all. She wanted to kiss them and cuddle them and raise them into amazing people.

Ben squeezed her hand, he was so shocked, but he had to be strong, it would be hard and would cost so much, but he wanted the three babies just as much as she did.

“Can we all stop talking like I’m not in the room?” He burst out, “We are going to have these three babies, sure it will be hard and risky but we’ve come this far and we are not backing out, this has all happened for a reason and I will not let you take this away from us”.

And that was that, Ben was now officially pregnant with triplets.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

People soon found out, it was a little hard to keep quiet after Ben had to get up and run out of the room to throw up during several meetings and the small bump that was now forming on his lower stomach.

Ben had to call his family to tell them and they also had to tell their close friends. His dad was horrified, telling him that they should have just adopted, his Mom was confused and a little upset, but all the while happy for them. April thought it was awesome and Ron said it was the manliest and un-manliest thing Ben had ever done.

The news got out with the public, The Pawnee Sun lapped it up, labelling Ben a freak of nature, Marcia and Marshall Langman went on Pawnee Today calling for Ben to have an abortion and claiming that he was basically ruining pregnancy for all married couples.

There was a lot of backlash, but Leslie and Ben ignored it, it was unconventional but they were unbelievably happy.

He also won the ‘Woman of the Year’ award, much to Leslie’s annoyance, the IOW claimed that Male pregnancy was ground breaking and Ben was incredible for taking on that responsibility.

Leslie rubbed his back after every bout of morning sickness and helped him choose large clothing for him to wear since maternity clothes for men don’t exist. They had to go for check ups every week to make sure everything was going smoothly and to everyone’s surprise there were no slip-ups.

Ben was basically a medical marvel.

Now he was six months pregnant, the babies moving and growing inside of him, he felt exhausted and drained like any other pregnant woman would be in his situation. Leslie had been going to the doctors regularly too to have hormone injections so she could produce milk and breastfeed, that way she could have a part of the whole experience and feel somewhat normal.

Ben shifted in the bed so that he was now lying on his back, his belly sticking up towards the ceiling. It hurt his back like hell but he liked looking at it like this, he could see the babies moving around easier and every now and then a small section in the corner would raise slightly as a baby kicked.

He was incredibly emotional all the time and calzones made him feel queasy. But this was all worth it.

Leslie had gotten up around an hour ago to cook Ben breakfast, she had been incredibly doting on his, no matter how many times Ben told her otherwise, Leslie insisted that he was doing her the biggest favour of her life and she needed to show her appreciation.

Ben had been showered with a stupid amount of gifts during this, rare Marvel comics, Star Wars memorabilia and plenty of back rubs. He admitted he loved all the attention but at the same time he wished he could do all the same for her.

He pulled back his shirt to examine his pregnant belly, it was covered in stretchmarks, Leslie called them his tiger stripes, his body really wasn’t prepared for what he had in mind but it was coping. It was soft to touch and the little hairs on his lower belly would stick up as the skin stretched to accommodate their babies. Ben thought he looked ridiculous, like he was wearing a simulation pregnancy stomach and could easily rip it off if he wanted. But he had a duty to fulfil and it was all going to be worth it next month.

The smell of waffles wafted into his nose and he smiled, Ben had been craving waffles like hell during this, they were Leslie’s children all right! He shifted back onto his side and carefully heaved himself up from the bed; one baby had taken to resting on his lungs so every breath he took was short and laboured.

His ‘Letters to Cleo’ shirt strained over his bulging belly, he knew he wouldn’t be able to wear it for much longer but it was his favourite shirt to lounge around in, plus he felt the importance for the triplets to know that they were an awesome band.

He waddled down the stairs carefully to see Leslie in the kitchen, her back was too him and she was humming softly to herself as she cooked.

Ben walked behind her, his belly touching her back before he could and he gently wrapped his arms around her, resting his head against her blonde hair silently.

“Morning” Leslie greeted with a smile as she felt a gentle kick from his stomach against her back, “Someone’s affectionate this morning”.

Ben smiled into her locks, “I’m just happy you’re with me”.

Leslie turned the stove off and turned to face him, “Those baby hormones are making you so goofy” she told him as she kissed his lips soundly. 

She rested her palms against Ben’s belly and rubbed the sides, “How are you feeling this morning, my magnificent pregnant seahorse?” 

Leslie had taken to nicknaming him ‘her seahorse’ during it, Ben thought it was pretty cute, he was basically a seahorse, taking Leslie’s eggs and keeping them warm and cosy until they were ready to come out. He would not, however, go far into the ocean and sit in solitude while he waited for them to be born. 

“I’m ok, tired though” He admitted.

Leslie kissed the tip of his nose, “Go sit down, breakfast is nearly ready” She told him as she turned back to the oven.

Ben obeyed and waddled towards the sofa, he carefully eased himself into the comfy cushions and sighed happily as the soft fabric eased his aching back.

Next month they would be going in for Ben’s caesarean, all this would finally be over and they would have their family.

He just had to hang in there for a little bit longer, but for Leslie Knope, he’d be willing to do this all over again, just to see her smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Justin Bieber once said 'is it too late now to say sorry?' I don't think I can apologise now!


End file.
